We were talking last evening at our weekly family dinner about the past 5 years. We are coming to the 5th anniversary of the lockdown. What a time was that!! For me, it was a sudden halt in travel and commuting through the Toronto gridlock. Suddenly, we were at home, at the dining room table with our laptops open, and wondering about how long this would last. Maybe three weeks or so?

As we had time, I was doing some blogging…and here’s a post from the 18 March 2020! I was using, as I point out in the blog post, the word unprecedented. At THQ we were working to try and make a way forward for our people!

Here’s the first paragraph: “Unprecedented seems to be a word that I am typing all too often. And of course, as I look at the empty parking lot at work it seems to be unprecedented.  Jason’s at home with his kids with the schools closed for at least 3 weeks.  Philip and Amanda have their kids home until September with AB closing their schools for the rest of the season. Mom is in her place in a lockdown – no visitors, no going out except for a walk around the block.” – 18 March 2020.

Governments around the world began spending stimulus dollars or providing support to businesses and individuals. Supply lines broke down, schools struggled to buy devices for their students, and the purchase of PPE took off – and what was the result of all this change? Lots of suppliers got greedy raising prices and making as much profit as possible.

Mental health challenges soared, students fell behind and domestic violence increased. That’s what started 5 years ago.

Now five years later, we are still dealing with the effects of this time.

Wendy and I moved to Edmonton in the pandemic. A great decision, which we can only attribute to the Lord’s provision. The time, the cost, even the fact that we were able to get the agreement of The Army to move is testament to our experience of God’s grace.

The world continues to experience turmoil. The trade war. The conflict in Ukraine, Palestine and more. But we believe that God’s agenda is not in trouble, the Kingdom of God is not shaken.